_noblesse_oblige_ wrote:Dodging multiple rows of fireballs with perfect timing (with an unencumbered party) was necessary to open the iron door to leave one of the levels (maybe 6? 7?) in LoG1, iirc. That was not optional and was probably the second hardest challenge in the game.

_noblesse_oblige_ wrote:Dodging multiple rows of fireballs with perfect timing (with an unencumbered party) was necessary to open the iron door to leave one of the levels (maybe 6? 7?) in LoG1, iirc. That was not optional and was probably the second hardest challenge in the game.

So, it was indeed level 7, but you're right that the exit was a little before the iron door, not after. (Also, the "fireballs" were actually spectral orbs and the idea was to catch them rather than dodge them. My memory of the game has apparently conflated things some in the three years since I played it.... )

But, in any case, that doesn't change my opinion that BT4 should not have such reflex-based challenges in it.
I want to be able to solve all of the puzzles with pure thought (and clue-gathering) and not have to train my reflexes to solve any of them. As someone who compulsively explores every inch of every dungeon, having some "optional" areas which require twitch reflexes is as much of a turn off as having some required areas which require them.

_noblesse_oblige_ wrote:I want to be able to solve all of the puzzles with pure thought (and clue-gathering) and not have to train my reflexes to solve any of them. As someone who compulsively explores every inch of every dungeon, having some "optional" areas which require twitch reflexes is as much of a turn off as having some required areas which require them.

I tend to see both as valid; and I see the call for restriction of one as not at all unlike wanting a restriction of the other. For the reverse would be to simplify the puzzles so that anyone [and everyone] can solve them, and not feel left out.

One should think of it as the options available. If the player faces three identical locks, and has only one key, they get to only choose one door. If they face three different locks and only have the key to one... That's their option. If there are three locks and only one accepts a key; and the others are challenges... one a puzzle, one a test... Those are their options, and they can open the ones ~they can open.

No, the magic system was pointlessly obtuse, unintuitive, and monstrously difficult to effectively use in the middle of combat. That rune system was, frankly, one of the worst I've ever seen in any property.

the timed puzzles were great [IMO]; moving backwards was sometimes part of the puzzle

Yes. A stupid part. Throw the skull, move backwards then sideways then backwards again to unlock some door.

My gosh; you must hate dungeon crawlers.

Look, I know you love Grimrock almost as much as the developers, but don't you dare imply that my complaints about it mean I dislike dungeon crawlers.

No, the magic system was pointlessly obtuse, unintuitive, and monstrously difficult to effectively use in the middle of combat. That rune system was, frankly, one of the worst I've ever seen in any property.

the timed puzzles were great [IMO]; moving backwards was sometimes part of the puzzle

Yes. A stupid part. Throw the skull, move backwards then sideways then backwards again to unlock some door.

My gosh; you must hate dungeon crawlers.

Look, I know you love Grimrock almost as much as the developers, but don't you dare imply that my complaints about it mean I dislike dungeon crawlers.

The magic system was great; even better IMO than their compromised follow-up system. I thought the runic system superb.

I cannot see how anyone could think them stupid.

That was my take away from your statement. I know that you like BT/WL even more than I do, but that's just two games; two styles. Two styles don't often make a genre, and you were disparaging genre features as flaws.

Don't you remember that BT series had timed puzzles too?

What is it that you didn't like about the runic system? It's fundamentally the same as BT, in that it requires a spell code; only in Grimrock, that code is usually based on the effect of the spell; (fire spells requiring the fire rune, for instance).

Mistakes with the rune panel btw, indicate casting mistakes of the mage; which I think is better than typing MAFL, or selecting the spell from a list.

Gizmo wrote:
I tend to see both as valid; and I see the call for restriction of one as not at all unlike wanting a restriction of the other. For the reverse would be to simplify the puzzles so that anyone [and everyone] can solve them, and not feel left out.

Not every game needs to cater to every possible audience. There are plenty of games which are solely driven by the reflexes of the player; I tend to avoid those games and I don't feel left out because they don't cater to me. Grimrock is a mixture between reflex-oriented and thought-oriented; I gave it a try because my brothers spoke highly of it and I was craving something new. However, I will not replay it and have no intention of playing LoG2 - too much frenzied mousing and party movement timed to within a razor's edge. And, again I don't feel left out because they made a LoG2 which did not cater to my tastes.

If someone wants mindless, reflex-driven action, then the BT series isn't for them. Timed puzzles, which don't require a high degree of hand-eye coordination but still have a timer ticking, are a somewhat different category than mindless action, but the same principle applies. Some people will also regard such timed puzzles as unwanted stressors. I am usually quite good at them. For example, I could've solved your iron door puzzle much more rapidly than the guy in the YouTube video to which you linked. And I would've enjoyed it within an appropriate context. However, I do not regard a BT game as being an appropriate context for timed puzzles (and certainly not for movement sequences timed to a hair's width). The context switch between thoughtful musing on puzzles and participating in abstract combat via a keyboard, on the one hand, and manipulating objects via a pointing device under time pressure, on the other hand, is somewhat jarring to me. I don't want my mind to be toggled back and forth between the two contexts within a game. If others can have games which cater to them and not to me, can I not also have a game which caters to me and maybe not to everyone else?

And what about BT2, you say? Well, one of the reasons I never got around to playing it is because I heard that it had timed puzzles. (I am also a bit stand-offish about the distance system used in 2 and 3, but that's another discussion for another thread perhaps.)

_noblesse_oblige_ wrote:Not every game needs to cater to every possible audience.

That's preaching at the choir.

OK, that's a relief. It must mean that I misunderstood your argument that I quoted in my earlier reply.

Gizmo wrote:
*BTW, you miss out on some superb games with that steadfast rule; not least among them LoG1 and LoG2.

Oh, I generally respect games which uncompromisingly cater to a particular niche, even if I wouldn't enjoy playing them.

But, for the record, I did beat LoG1. I posted that character development strategy guide, to which I linked in an earlier post, after I had beaten it. I just won't be replaying it - not even in Toorum mode - and not even to try out the Gizmo-and-friends, year-in-the-making supermod for it.

P.S. With all of this talk about Grimrock, we might be straying some from the "Turn-Based" criterion in the thread title, I think.

_noblesse_oblige_ wrote:...and not even to try out the Gizmo-and-friends, year-in-the-making supermod for it.

That's a shame too. I don't recall a single timed puzzle in it, and the design of it makes every one of the 75 rooms optional ~after the first room ~where the game starts. It extends the engine with new spells and spell effects, new monsters, new mechanics, fiendish puzzling, even had ladders before LoG2 [my contribution]. It's dense enough that it actually has to erase [and/or restore] about %80 of the level during play (everywhere the player currently isn't), to maintain a playable framerate. 8 rooms per floor, 9 accessible floors, only three rooms needed to proceed upward to the next floor.

P.S. With all of this talk about Grimrock, we might be straying some from the "Turn-Based" criterion in the thread title, I think.

The thread tile asks for the very limited list of first person turn based RPGs, all of which likely have been listed already. Myself I cannot think of a single one; the games I can think of are phased based, and are mentioned earlier.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but on the topic of puzzles I'd like to see most as them being "optional". As in just say you find a stone door with a riddle on it, if you speak the answer to the riddle (type it in) it opens, but if you have high enough "Bashing" skill (barbarian skill?) you can still break down the door and get the treasure. That way players who don't like puzzles don't have to do them, seeing as puzzles are not a core RPG feature (they're a core adventure game feature).

In lands of lore, and I think Might & Magic as well, the PCs could spot hidden rooms for the player. In M&M (I think), some items did not appear unless the PCs were able to spot them first.

I'm of mixed opinion about puzzles. For on one hand, if they are required, then the player's progress gets halted if they cannot solve the puzzle... Yet on the other hand, the player shouldn't have access to something protected by a puzzle they cannot solve.

*As an aside: I don't often class Dungeon Crawlers as RPGs. They have characters of course, but those tend not to be unique personalities that interact with the game and NPCs of the game ~not in any way deeper than buying and selling, or asking for rumors in the best of the best examples.
Generally a dungeon crawler thrives on the map and the puzzles; and the PCs are enablers... much like units in an RTS. The allow for clearing the way to access further puzzles and more exploration of the map.

Whereas I do class dungeon crawlers as RPGs, if the characters can be developed along custom routes, choosing skills and attributes to improve, and/or improving based on the actions, choices and decisions I make for them in the game. To me that's Role playing. Dungeon crawlers are a subset of RPGs. It's certainly possible to have dungeon- or more like map-crawlers controlling characters that are pre-developed, who are basically played along rails throughout the narrative of the game, picking up powers and abilities as provided; but that to me is more of an arcade style adventure game, and much less an RPG.
...as an aside

_noblesse_oblige_ wrote:I do not regard a BT game as being an appropriate context for timed puzzles (and certainly not for movement sequences timed to a hair's width).

Very much this! And the snares in BT2 were a controversial inclusion at best; even the devs recognize this

thebruce wrote:Whereas I do class dungeon crawlers as RPGs, if the characters can be developed along custom routes, choosing skills and attributes to improve, and/or improving based on the actions, choices and decisions I make for them in the game. To me that's Role playing.

You can do all that in "No One Lives Forever"; does that count as an RPG to you? (Serious question.)
NOLF is a great shooter, that incorporates character skills, and skill reliant activities... But it's a shooter. The game is not designed to react to player-character decisions.)

Ah, semantics... Ok, you said "I don't often class Dungeon Crawlers as RPGs. They have characters of course, but those tend not to be unique personalities that interact with the game and NPCs of the game ~not in any way deeper than buying and selling, or asking for rumors in the best of the best examples."
So, my response was directecly to that - that I would not exclude, universally, dungeon crawlers as RPGs; and proceeded to give examples wherein a game that some might consider a dungeon crawler I wouldn't, even though others I would.
So, that wasn't a universal statement that if a game did contain those mechanics that I would consider it an RPG. There are other factors, as I implied.
So, in regards to "No One Lives Forever", shoot me, but I haven't played it. However I may consider it technically an RPG if the mechanics were exactly the same just in a different genre than high fantasy; though I'd more likely consider RPGs within the fantasy genre. If I played it, I wouldn't be thinking "wow what a great RPG", I'd be thinking "what a great FPS!" (ymmv) - even if it did incorporate some RPG mechanics in the player/character development.

As I mentioned above, a dungeon crawler that's on rails I wouldn't consider an RPG.
An FPS with RPG mechanics I'd hesitate to call an RPG overall.

I think I'm sensing two aspects to an 'RPG' in my preferences. One is genre, of the environment, story, etc; and one is the character building mechanic. Having the latter with a high fantasy setting for the former, yeah, I'd instinctively call it an RPG. Having the latter in a non-fantasy setting (like a distinct sci-fi for example), and I may consider it an RPG style game but I'd have to get over the fact that it's not fantasy . You could have the game an RPG in a fantasy setting but a different style of game - overhead crawler (Diablo), first person crawler (BT), first person 3d (Elderscrolls), etc. By my argument, I'd say you could have the exact same game styles in a sci-fi context and still have an RPG (Kotor comes to mind, or System Shock); but I haven't played enough of'em to name some off the top of my head

I'm not sure I best expressed what I was thinking, so hopefully you get the gist Keep in mine this is what I think of when defining RPG; others may not think the same. =P

Four people in a tight formation running backwards and then running sideways. Sure. That's not ridiculous at all. And, hey, being an eighth of a second too slow means I get to do it all over again. Fun! After doing that, I'll go do some first-person jumping puzzles.

[*]That was my take away from your statement. I know that you like BT/WL even more than I do, but that's just two games; two styles. Two styles don't often make a genre, and you were disparaging genre features as flaws.

But, apparently, one does, huh? Having problems with Grimrock means I dislike dungeon crawlers. Every day I learn something new. Today, for example, I learned that some random [stranger] online knows what I like better than I do!

Don't you remember that BT series had timed puzzles too?

As far as I recall, only BT2 did. And was roundly criticized for it.

What is it that you didn't like about the runic system? It's fundamentally the same as BT, in that it requires a spell code; only in Grimrock, that code is usually based on the effect of the spell; (fire spells requiring the fire rune, for instance).

It's the interface. Combat is real time, my party is all the way on the lower right of the screen. The runes are on the lower left. While frantically clicking on tiny pictures of weapons to fight, I also have to swing over to click pictures of meaningless runes. And then the window closes after use so I have to reopen it. All while taking damage because, again, combat is real time.

Drool wrote:Four people in a tight formation running backwards and then running sideways. Sure. That's not ridiculous at all. And, hey, being an eighth of a second too slow means I get to do it all over again. Fun! After doing that, I'll go do some first-person jumping puzzles.

You forgot to mention that they are also in connected leg manacles. (And you don't ever hear a sound effect for them.)

(Still... no. The characters are an abstraction, the party view is an abstraction; the puzzle is the purpose. There is nothing wrong with that part of the game.)

No; having a problem with common gameplay for a genre as a whole, tends to imply [correctly or not] that you don't like the genre.

As far as I recall, only BT2 did. And was roundly criticized for it.

A shame IMO. While timed puzzles used everywhere becomes a strain, the use of them now and again should not draw the ire of such a thin skinned playerbase. That it does, is a shame; and disappointing IMO.

Maybe you're playing on 600x800 so everything's nice and close.

I always set a game's resolution to what's sensible to play. I would never play a game at ultra high resolution if all it meant was a shrinkage of visuals, and the UI. I do not use Hi-Res patches for games like Arcanum, Fallout, or Baldur's Gate (No point, no benefit). Planescape had 2x graphics to begin with, and works fine with the [so called] hi-res patch. Grimrock plays fine at 1600x900 on a 16:9 monitor. IMO it plays fine at 1920x1080 on the same, but the character UI is noticeably smaller.

Drool wrote:As far as I recall, only BT2 did. And was roundly criticized for it.

A shame IMO. While timed puzzles used everywhere becomes a strain, the use of them now and again should not draw the ire of such a thin skinned playerbase. That it does, is a shame; and disappointing IMO.

Why? BT1 set a precedent for a certain style of game play, which many people found enjoyable. BT2 deviated from that formula somewhat by introducing context switches between the expected style of play and an "innovation", namely timed puzzles. How is it thin-skinned that people express their displeasure with some new aspect of a game, which ruins their expected experience? Am I thin-skinned for expressing displeasure over some of the perceived directions in BT4 development? What about the people who didn't like George Lucas' attempts at making Star Wars prequels? What about the people who were critical of every actor after Sean Connery to play James Bond?

Sometimes creative works stumble upon a golden formula at their inception and develop a devoted fan base, who seek to jealously guard that formula, even from its very creators (who often found it more by luck than by any deep wisdom or insight into the human psyche). I would not fault fan[atics] for being fanatical about that which they treasure. But, I also think that there is a place to be fanatical about Grimrock and that place is not here.

I think that any reflex response like that shows a thin skin. Puzzles are puzzles, that one has a clock to it is about as offending as another having a musical solution, or yet another having careful movements, or even another with the solution that one must wait until the time is up ~rather than solve before the time runs out.

I think the criticism was likely [IRRC] that the timed puzzle in BT2 was a deathtrap if not solved in time.

Maybe I missed it, but the original Phantasy Star seems to be a glaring omission from this list - it had a range of "1st" features including:

1. Mixed fantasy / sci-fi setting which had some originality about it;
2. 3 worlds that could be traversed in different vehicles;
3. A kick-ass female heroine intent on revenge for her dead brother; and
4. A real sense of mystery and not knowing what new path you might open next.

Although modern FAQs and discussion forums would probably ruin the last of those in this day and age.